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I’ve written this and allowed you to read it in the event of worst case scenario – something I don’t want to even consider right now as I type. If you’ve heard something and you’re concerned or shocked, please do me the favour of reading this.

At the end of September 2014, the school I taught at was contacted by an anonymous complainant wanting to point the finger at me for being an ‘intellectual pedophile’, ‘communist’ and a ‘psycho’. This is not the first time my place of employment has received complaints about me from unidentified members of the general public. As usual, this person used a fake name to make their complaint. Why is this continuing to happen? Around 8 years ago I was very active in the anti-discrimination activism scene. I organized rallies, spoke in forums, participated in protests, and wrote opinion pieces for left leaning publications and the like. I felt very strongly about the incredibly public mistreatment of people from other countries, religions and sexualities. Around 6 years ago I created a website called Ozstraya and created stickers and t-shirts with anti-discrimination slogans etc.

I gave these out and tried to lobby public support by attending public events to promote the cause. Around 5 years ago I created the online network ‘Australians Against Racism and Discrimination (AARD)’ and attracted around 10,000 followers. Four years ago I created the online blog www.theantibogan.wordpress.com because I was disillusioned at how online websites like Facebook and YouTube would allow users to post all manner of material such as death threats leveled at Indians, Aborigines and Muslims and vile and rampant sexism and homophobia. The website I created hosted screenshots that I would routinely take of people publishing inappropriate content. I would also post all publicly available material that I could find about the offenders which often resulted in public backlash and in some cases, termination of employment. e.g.:

Fromhttp://theantibogan.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/inciting-cronulla-style-riots-at-the-cricket/ As a result of my involvement in this form of activity and alignment with anti- discrimination anarchist groups such as FightDemBack and SlackBastard, I attracted the ire of neo Nazis and white supremacists as well as the public denouncement from lunatic fringe political parties such as The Australian Protectionist Party, Australia First and One Nation.

(Note: ’14 words website network’: The Fourteen Words is a phrase used predominantly by white nationalists. It most commonly refers to a 14-word slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.” It can also refer to another 14-word slogan: “Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth.“)

I was able to remain anonymous as the author of theantibogan until I gave a speech at an anti-racism forum hosted by AllTogetherNow and the NSW Reconciliation Council. It was at this forum that I was photographed and followed home by a neo nazi called Darryl Rock who lived in Chippendale and used the online pseudonym ‘Shockadelic’.

He posted all of my details including my car registration, residential address, photographs and names of my close friends and family to right wing anarchist websites such as Whitelaw Towers and Anti-Antifa. The owners of these websites published stories about me and posted all of my employment and contact details.

These are still online to this day. I was labeled ‘Zionist’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘anti freedom of speech’. Rock contacted the school I taught at and encouraged others to do likewise. In the 2-3 weeks following his discovery, my family and friends received death threats, dead rodents in the letterbox, late night phone calls and midnight knock and runs. It was at this time that my identity was stolen and the first of many fake Alex Gollans appeared on Facebook, joining pages (groups as they were then known) such as ‘Sydney Transsexuals’ and ‘Rape Enthusiasts’. Screenshots of my ‘involvement’ in these groups would be left in my letterbox and posted to my school.

This is a concerns notice, under the NSW Defamation Act 2005.Several false statements are made about me, Shockadelic, and I want those statements removed.“It was at this forum that I was photographed and followed home by a neo nazi called Darryl Rock who lived in Chippendale and used the online pseudonym ‘Shockadelic’.”1. I did not photograph you. Photographs of your appearance at the I’m Not Racist But forum were taken by its sponsors/organisers and published on their website.2. I could not have followed you home, since I did not attend the event, nor knew if its occurrence until several days afterward.3. I am not a neo-Nazi. I am a classical liberal. Your numerous files contain not one single instance of my advocacy of neo-Nazi Ideology, for no such instance has ever existed.4. You are well aware that Shockadelic is not a pseudonym. It is my real legal name and you’ve known this for several years.“He posted all of my details including my car registration, residential address, photographs and names of my close friends and family to right wing anarchist websites.”5. I did not publish any of these personal details online.“Rock contacted the school I taught at and encouraged others to do likewise.”6. I never contacted your school nor “encouraged” others to do so.Your statements paint a false picture and also implicitly connect me to subsequent events I had nothing to do with and had no control over.If your false statements lead a suggestible person to harm me, you may be liable for damages.If you do not make a reasonable offer of amends, you may also be liable to pay the costs of any defamation proceedings.Please remove these defamatory references to myself within the next 28 days.Mr Shockadelic

Update:

Dear ‘Mr Shockadelic’,

1. Retracted, although there were photos of me appearing on right-wing nationalist websites that were not the same as those published on the NSW Reconciliation Council’s website;

2. I have strong reason to believe that you did;

3. Retracted;

4. Your real name was Darryl Stephen Rock at the time. http://abr.business.gov.au/SearchByAbnHistory.aspx?abn=59819296390

5. I have strong reason to believe that you did;

6. By creating a group called ‘Victims of the Antibogan’ and publishing my place of employment, you are encouraging people to make contact;

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I spoke about this at length in a documentary I was in called ‘Sunshine and Shade’. I referred to the constant fear and threats and also the disgusting email contact and general harassment that I suffered through every day for close to a decade.

I contacted the police at Redfern LAC and provided them with screenshots and as much information as possible. After several follow up visits, they still hadn’t assisted me and I never heard from them. Because of my infamy, I was receiving abuse and threats from a plethora of online haters. Nevertheless, I denied my involvement and maintained theantibogan website as it was receiving 5000 hits per day and widespread support. The general public were emailing theantibogan@gmail.com and expressing their gratitude and support and were also sending examples of discrimination for publication. I always deleted the emails where the screenshots were of private conversations as I only ever published already public examples of extreme discrimination.

In 2011, my school received so many anonymous complaints about my ‘leftist/communist/propagandist/pedophile conduct as a teacher and also the safety of the students in my care that EPAC was forced to investigate my conduct. I don’t know exactly what that entailed but I believe my work email was accessed and monitored. I was cleared.

In Term 3 of 2011 while I was teaching a Year 4 class, one of the parents told me that there was an Alex Gollan on Facebook friending lots of Strathfield South Public School students including her son. Upon investigation it was evident that someone was behind yet another fake me and was adding students, sending them dirty private messages and saying suggestive things to them. As police had previously told me to do, I continued to screenshot absolutely everything that I came across and this was obviously no exception.

When Facebook refused to remove the fake profile, I was contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald and a story ran about me. Facebook responded to media pressure and pulled the profile but not before this had all been traumatizing students in my care and ensuring that rumours had spread about me. Immediately following the pulling of the fake profile came yet another anonymous complaint about me to the DET and EPAC once again investigated and subsequently cleared me of inappropriate behavior.

I went to Redfern LAC and this time my complaints reached detective level but only because children had been affected. I believe police felt obliged to act but only because the safety of children had been breached. An ‘iASK’ was run to find who was behind the profile but the investigation went nowhere because Facebook servers are located in California and people generally utilized Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) which send their location overseas. The detective on my case apparently left Redfern LAC and I was told that he wasn’t replaced. I never received police assistance in this matter.

As theantibogan grew, so did public interest and opinion pieces were written and I was contacted by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Defense Force to become an intelligence gatherer and informant on illegal neo nazi activity in society and within the ADF due to the coinciding online misdemeanors occurring within the force. I was on several occasions transported to the inner sanctums of each respective organization to provide assistance to investigators. I received no benefit or assistance in any of my matters in return.

It was around the middle of 2012 when I became aware that online discussions of me had moved to private online forums and that discussions taking place were largely centered on ways in which I could be made to lose my job. I have screenshots of many of these conversations as a result of friends of mine and I managing fake ‘honey-trap’ profiles which had been granted entry into these private forums. Because of my occupation, it was decided that I was incredibly vulnerable in what I could do physically and also in what I could do online.

The two main points of attack that were discussed the most were public protests outside my school about my ‘online behaviour’ which would prompt school community demands for investigation and also relentless lures of inappropriate online content couple with attempts to hack my email and Facebook accounts.

I have kept a lot of my evidence here. The more sensitive evidence was saved to USB, given to police and deleted.

The first threat of public protest outside my school was carried out by Paul Toohey, Nicholas Folkes and Darrin Hodges and a small group of similarly small-minded individuals who waved Australian flags and berated me as a pedophile outside my school. I sent Nicholas Folkes an email from theantibogan email account threatening him with the ‘Enclosed Lands Act’ and no further ‘protests’ were held again. (Side note: Nicholas Folkes appeared on SBS’ ‘Living With The Enemy’ and heads a small, far-right anti-immigration political party called ‘Party For Freedom’).

I went to Burwood LAC and lodged statements and provided them with evidence of the conversations and also the planned attacks. I explained that their aim was to continue to paint me as a pedophile and to continue to raid my computer and online presence. I was assured that ‘police presence around the school’ would increase (as a result of wanting to protect the safety of children) but I personally received no assistance and was told that it would be difficult to prosecute anyone unless they had done anything physically.

Sometime towards the end of 2012 I began receiving child exploitation material in the email accounts of theantibogan@gmail.com , alexandergollan@gmail.com and in my Facebook inbox from someone/people using pseudonym/s. The most common pseudonyms used were ‘John Harris’ and similar variations. The email addresses were generally using the same and similar usernames and also variations on ‘bantheburqa’ and ‘aussiepride’.

I always screenshot this evidence and I shared this with police at Flemington and Burwood in the form of a printed booklet and a USB. The advice given to me was to document everything and ensure that I was reporting the photos and profiles to Facebook as well as blocking them. I still receive the abuse to this day as my concerns have never been addressed, due to the nature of inability to prevent cyber crime.

I continued to screenshot evidence and also used Gmail’s advanced tools to identify the IP addresses of the attacks but the IP addresses belonged to VPNs and the locations were thrown to places such as Canada, Portugal and the United States. I would receive regular notifications in my email and on my mobile phone of someone/people attempting to reset my Facebook password and gain access. At the time, Facebook would inform the person attempting reset of the email/phone contact of the account holder and while the disgusting material continued coming, I lost access to my Facebook profile as a result of repeated hack attempts. Facebook cited ‘fake name and security questions’ as reasons and required that I scan and send in copies of my driver’s license and utilities bills as recognition that I was a real person.

(Taken from a discussion from a private forum – a plan to set me up and then use advanced hacking skills to infect and obtain my computer)

I was incredibly stressed and I obliged because I didn’t want anyone else gaining access to my Facebook inbox as it was often receiving distressing content. I was dealing with all of this in a very private way but still attempting to engage the police when I felt as though I couldn’t take any more.

(Random bigots everywhere were sharing slanderous and defamatory images of me online. Advice from the police was to make statements regarding specific people, and I did. However, the problem was far more reaching and I exhausted myself trying to keep my close family and friends from also being targeted.)

I regained access to my Facebook account but was no longer allowed to use the pseudonym ‘Alex Alexander’. I had used this online pseudonym because I didn’t want students attempting to add me.

I was increasingly concerned about the consistent attacks in the form of threats but was living with them. I was continuing to receive various forms of child exploitation material and this now included links to videos at what I believed were highly moderated websites such as YouTube. As I had always done, I saved the evidence and bookmarked the pages.

(This is the most recent IP address belonging to ‘John Harris’ that I phished via a honeytrap link. Police were unable to follow up on this.)

I went to Burwood LAC a second time and this time I wasn’t even listened to. I made a statement with a female officer but while this was happening, she was being watched by a sergeant who told me ‘this would go nowhere’. When I told him I had addresses, evidence, email addresses and IP addresses, I was told that none of that mattered because ‘iASK’ requests took months to return and that nothing had happened to me physically. The female officer asked what an IP address was.

The male officer said that I could go next door to the courthouse to apply for a PVO against those who I believe were behind the attacks and so I attempted to lodge PVOs against Nicholas Folkes and Christopher Merrett. I believed that Christopher was behind much of the defamatory and inappropriate content being sent to me and he thought he was untouchable because he was in another state and very tech-savvy.

I was told by a (magistrate/courtroom assistant?) that I could only have the PVOs finalized by having the applications sighted by the antagonists and having to face them in a courtroom. I was also told that on my application I must provide my residential address and that yes, they would be able to see it. This distressed me greatly because I had moved to a residence in – – – – – and had become a silent-elector to protect my family. I had also been advised to change my phone number and while I had done all of this I was scared because I felt that providing this information to people I wanted to be protected from would simply get it all out into the public sphere once more. I couldn’t cope with the stress of that and also having to face these people in court so I went home completely disillusioned. I dealt with this all privately.

I remembered what the officer at Burwood LAC had said and rang police asking them to attend my residence one night while I was alone, pretending that someone had ‘tried to get in to harm me’, hoping that they would finally act on something. They attended my residence but nothing resulted and they informed me that I should no longer be accessing Burwood LAC because Auburn/Flemington was my local. Throughout all of this I continued to receive exploitation material and links and while I saved the evidence, I deleted and blocked the users as was the advice I was given by police.

(Discussions continue in private groups as to how to infect and obtain my computer)

I increasingly considered utilizing my blog to expose these people but didn’t know for sure who was exactly behind the attacks. The main abuser continued to use the pseudonym ‘John Harris’ and literally owned over 50 replicated fake profiles on Facebook. The user had bragged that buying a $2 sim allowed him (or her) to continue to create these profiles. This user along with other fake profiles had now taken to publicly posting photos of me (as they had always done) but now with meme writing portraying me as a pedophile. These images were routinely posted on public websites and also posted to my school which now had been granted the opportunity to ‘delete on sight’ any complaining emails about me. I so desperately wanted to destroy these people and felt as though I had no legal means to do so.

(Fake Alex Gollans were regularly set up and making comments with the intention of slandering my reputation)

(Amongst the continued spamming, slander, attempted hacking and general intimidation was the constant contact with my employer and also the school I taught at. The intention was to have me continuously investigated. This was successful.)

(It wasn’t just me who was on the end of this treatment. Anti-discrimination friends of mine were having their reputations tarnished and were also receiving unwanted contact. They were having photos of their families (including children) washed all over the Internet)

I went to Auburn/Flemington LAC midway through 2013 with more booklets full of screenshots and links to exploitation material as well as a link to a dropbox file that I had created so I could store things online. Not only did I feel completely ignored but I was told that if Chris Merrett was responsible (as I assumed he was) he could not be extradited to NSW because he had not physically harmed a person or child, and that I would have to lodge a statement at a LAC in Victoria. I felt, as I had always felt, that my problem was not worthy and that by being a strong opponent of discrimination I had brought this problem upon myself. I felt that until a student was actually harmed I would not have police assistance.

Late in 2013 I travelled to Victoria (upon the advice of officers at Flemington and Burwood LACs) and attempted to lodge a statement at Apollo Bay LAC, but was unable to do so and was instead given information on how to contact some kind of support service (I forget the detail) and also advised that I should probably hire a lawyer. I was also told that I didn’t actually have to lodge a statement in Victoria and that in actual fact, yes, NSW and Victorian police could communicate and charge. I returned to Burwood LAC and once again provided my evidence. Each time I attended a police station, I felt ignored and realize now that while on most occasions I was asked to completely re-explain my predicament and have an officer handwrite some kind of statement in a little, disorganized notebook, this didn’t always happen. I was told on this last visit to Burwood LAC that they would (once again) conduct an ‘iASK’ on the profiles and email addresses I had eluded to in my growing booklet of evidence. I called the station on many occasions and was told that the female officer managing my ‘case’ was on holiday (several times) and then I never heard back from her.

In December of 2013 I was informed by a concerned parent at the school I taught at that the kids had been Googling me and were worried about what they were finding.

(One of the approaches being taken was to post copious amounts of slander about me all over the Internet so that it would all appear at the top of Google searches)

The parents supported me as I (once again) re-explained the situation and one of the parents pointed me towards a friend of hers who worked at Marrickville LAC. I attended MLAC early in 2014 and told her of the situation. She was immensely concerned but I did not feel comfortable mentioning the repeated sending of child exploitation material seeing as though I had told officers before but never had they been direct friends of parents of students in my care. She offered her full support and told me I could write my own statement and I began compiling specific evidence in a folder on my computer.

It was at this time that various anti-racism friends got in contact with me to inform me that the Chris Merrett I assumed it was had been served with a PVO for abusing his girlfriend and her children while living in The Rock in NSW. I was also informed that the person mainly behind the use of John Harris was not Merrett, but Paul Toohey who lived on the Central Coast in a caravan park and who was on the Child Sex Offenders Register for abusing the children of a friend of his (Sandra Rogic) while he stayed with her in Queensland.

I have always collected evidence in the hope that one day I’d be listened to. I’ve fought a very private battle – one that has deeply concerned and scared me. Many of my close family and friends know of this battle well but they do not know of all of the more intricate and frustratingly sick details of concern. To this day I am stalked, harassed and face unwanted contact in many different forms.

I have deliberately played certain things close to my chest because I fear assumptions and I have also harboured (for some time) a desire to make a variety of people pay for their actions. How I was to do that, I never quite figured out and never acted on because of the fear of getting it wrong. I still do not precisely know who was behind the John Harris profile but I know that I was not his/her only target. – – – – – -, – – – – – -, – – – – – -, – – – – – -, – – – – – – and others all received similar abuse. The Harris profile would regularly post pictures of their children and grandchildren, post their private details and stalk their residences. – – – – – – in particular has always CCd me in her continued attempts to garner police assistance and while I’ve deleted most of the content of my inboxes over time, I’ve still got that.

To this day, I continue to receive daily attempts at hacking my Facebook credentials.

My interactions with children have always been appropriate and safe and for the better part of a decade I have exerted so much of my life into standing up to those who seek to harm innocent people. I have been around children for over a decade in various capacities and have never been in a position where I am one on one with them, nor have I ever faced any accusations. I am more than confident that any child from any context would confirm that while I am always trying to be funny, I have never ever done anything which would be considered inappropriate or illegal.

I feel as though my current predicament will strand me without a basis of context and for that, I am considerably stressed and concerned. I want to continue my career and at no point of my life have I ever considered myself to be a danger to children. This thought alone sickens me. To think that my computers are being raided is frustrating to say the least because while I’ve kept sickening details away from my wider group of friends and family, I’ve been upfront with police for the last several years, telling them absolutely everything that I’ve been faced with.

I blame myself largely for my predicament. I thought I had a plan to beat these arseholes at their own game but I never really had the time to really and truly consider how I’d go about it. I am so disappointed in the authorities for putting me in a position where I would have to consider vigilante justice and where I’d have to document every single instance of abuse. Instead of living my life in a happy and healthy way, I’ve invested so much mental energy into paying attention to every threat and attempt at defamation.

I’ve been to the police around 14 or 15 times over the past three years. Here is a list of event numbers that I have managed to keep a record of: 2009 E38861919 E37287946 2010 E43451135 E45101132 E45442026 E46666359 2012 E46307209 E48569628 E50212871 2013 E53061681 E54510587 Not once did I ever receive an update on how my case/s was/were being investigated. Not once did I ever receive a simple phone call to say that all had come to a dead end. Not once did I ever receive acknowledgement that the evidence I was providing amounted to abuse and an invasion of privacy coupled with an attempted highjacking of my character. I always had to be the one ringing and visiting police stations and the officer I was looking for was always ‘on holiday’ or ‘will ring me back when they return to shifts next fortnight’ etc. This was sent to a friend of mine who is in the exact same situation:

I have saved evidence along the way and placed it into a Dropbox. I saved more sensitive data onto a USB and handed it to police at Burwood LAC and Flemington LAC around 15 months ago. Unfortunately it now seems that each time I provided evidence I was in fact digging my own hole.

A copy of my blocked list on Facebook is here. What this list shows is the volume of people who have contacted me to abuse/threaten me over the past few years. What this list doesn’t show is the profiles of which I have blocked and have then been removed from Facebook, eg the plethora of ‘John Harris’. If I ever find who was/were behind ‘John Harris’ I simply cannot publish words here to suggest what I will do.

I have published this because I am currently accused of and being investigated for having contact on Facebook with people under the age of 16 and accessing child pornography. What hope do I have of being proved innocent if I have shared all of the above (and so, so much more) with police for years and have never been helped?

I am scared that my private battle will be made public and that I will be the one to face consequences. The lesson I have learned is to never stand up for what you believe in because those who disagree might resort to the kind of tactics that are absolutely soul-crushing and life ruining. I will always try to teach children to be decent human beings but I simply cannot bring myself to ever encourage another person to stand up against evil.

UPDATE:
Chris Merrett is currently under investigation for doing exactly what he has done to me to other people who have come forward.

UPDATE:
It appears that after attending police stations for so long and supplying officers with links to my Dropbox where I saved the majority of my evidence, it is now apparent that Dropbox cannot be accessed from police precincts and officers are not allowed to look at sensitive material at their homes. Therefore, I can assume that over the past 4 years, no officers have even taken the time to look at the evidence I’ve given to them.